Am I Beautiful?

This morning Alyssa staggered out of bed and found me in the kitchen. Her hair was sticking out every which way. She had 2 different colored socks on. Her bedclothes were wrinkled and twisted and her eyes were still 3/4 glazed shut. She was squinting to even see me. She came over to me and stretched out her arms. I picked her up and her first words to me were, "Am I beautiful, Mommy?" I told her that she was beyond beautiful to me. She was one of a kind. Then she looked up at me and said, "Mommy, do I look like you?"

After this was all said and done the spiritual application of that conversation hit me like a ton of bricks. In all our dissarray of humaness that must look to God like Alyssa looked to me this AM, he still finds us to be beautiful! The depth of love I felt for my little girl as she searched for affirmation from me is NOTHING compared to the love God feels for me as HIS daughter. I can come to Him just as I am and He loves ME! He sees "Julie" - not just the faults and the failures (which are many). Just as I found Alyssa to be beautiful inspite of the outter appearances, He finds me to be beautiful as well.

Then her last question really did me in. "Mommy, do I look like you?" Wow. Shouldn't our ultimate goal in life be to look like our Father? Lord help my daily prayer to be, "Abba, do I look like you?" When others see me, it is my deepest desire that they not see me, but that they see my Father.

Maybe I've totally spirituallized something that was not worth mentioning. However, God ministered to me through the experience. Oh to be a kid again!